These photographers helped shape and define nearly every area of our world, from rock music to civil rights to fine art. Here, TIME celebrates the lives and work of some of the great photographers we lost in 2017.

In more than four decades at The Times, Mr. Charles photographed a wide range of subjects, from local hangouts to celebrities to fashion to the United Nations. But he may be best remembered for the work that earned him early acclaim: his photographs of key moments and figures of the civil rights era.

There are some people who you always know you can count on, no matter what. They are not necessarily your best friend. You may not see them for a day, a month, or a year. But you know they are always around. Wally McNamee was one of those people

Post staff writer Bart Barnes, in McNamee’s obituary, wrote: “Among his most memorable pictures was a photograph of first lady Jacqueline Kennedy disembarking from Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base on Nov. 22, 1963, hours after President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas. The president’s brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, is holding her hand, and she is still wearing the suit stained with the president’s blood spattered on her by the assassin’s bullets. Mr. McNamee later described it as “a graphic touch to this horrible moment.”

In addition to covering major news events including the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam War, McNamee covered presidential administrations from Dwight Eisenhower to Bill Clinton. He was named Photographer of the Year four times by the White House News Photographers Association, which also awarded him a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000.

The government’s Mechanism to Protect Journalists and Rights Activists called for an “immediate and effective investigation” into the killing of Edgar Daniel Esqueda Castro, 23, who was reportedly kidnapped Thursday by gunmen posing as police officers in the city of San Luis Potosi.

When the photographer Pete Turner was on assignment in Amboseli National Park in Kenya in 1964, a lone giraffe galloped across the empty plain before him, and he captured it in all its solitude, its neck rising above the horizon.

Mr. Turner’s resulting transparency was overexposed, but he saved it by rephotographing it and using filters to transform it into a spectacular and eerie new image.

S Paul, a path-breaker in the field of Indian photojournalism transformed an era of romantic and pictorial photography into one of vibrant, living images. Considered the Henri Cartier Bresson of India, the ace-photographer passed away on August 16, 2017 in New Delhi.

Arlene Gottfried, whose arresting images of ordinary people in New York’s humbler neighborhoods earned her belated recognition as one of the finest street photographers of her generation, died on Tuesday at her home in Manhattan. She was 66.

“In every frame, no matter how tough the subject matter, there is never a sense of detached irony or coolness. Whether it was her mother dying in bed, or a homeless person on the sidewalk, she approached them with the same careful empathy and directness.”

Robert Capa’s iconic 1944 shot of a soldier in the surf at Normandy would become one of the most celebrated pictures of the Second World War—but Capa did not act alone. John G. Morris, a picture editor at LIFE magazine, had assigned the war photographer to cover D-Day.

Legendary photo editor John G. Morris died today in Paris. He was 100. Morris was a titan in the world of photojournalism, serving as photo editor for LIFE, The New York Times, National Geographic, and Magnum. Photographers he worked closely with include Robert Capa and W. Eugene Smith.

From time to time I’d hear that Chip had done something extraordinary and knew he was printing his 8 x 10 negatives on aluminum with the result being these incredibly flat prints that seemed to go on forever. He was friends with John Szarkowski, the photo curator at MOMA and I remember seeing his work on display once at the museum. During those years Chip was heavily invested in making separations for photo books. An example is the four volumes on Eugene Atget produced for the Museum of Modern Art.